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| all .pictures courtesy of Serge Flaquer Carreras |
The N104 in Portugal is an east-west main road in the north of the country. This road crosses the western outskirts of the municipality of Trofa, some 25 km north of the town of Porto.This part of the N104, locally named Rua 16 de Maio 1929, is flanked by large villas and businesses.
One of the large houses along the road is the Villa Soledade. In recent decades, the area separating the house from the road has been transformed into an extensive art environment named Reislândia, visible to passers through the bars of the fence separating the site from the road (and visible for visitors of this weblog via Google streetview)
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| honorary memorial for Reis' murdered son |
Life and works
Reislândia is a creation of Eduardo Maia da Costa Reis, in general referred to as Eduardo Reis.
Reis was born in 1932 in the municipality of Trofa, that currently has about 3900 inhabitants (2011) and has a pronounced industrial character with companies in the field of textiles, pharmaceuticals and metal processing.
At the age of 18 in the early 1950s, Reis left for Venezuela, where he developed into a prosperous and dynamic civil construction entrepreneur. Living in the capital, Caracas, he also became known for his involvement in charitable, philanthropic and cultural activities, such as the Portuguese Social Center, the Lady of Fatima Church and the Portuguese Institute of Culture, of which he was director.
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| view from the street on the entrance gate and the site |
In 1979, when he was in his late 40s, he returned to his hometown of Troja. The internet has no info about this, but it may be that he already then settled in the villa along the N104 and that he became involved for a number of years in the management of a metal-processing company in the Troja area.
can be seen from the street
In 1997, when Reis was in his mid-60s, a drama unfolded that would determine the rest of his life. A son of his, pictured in the second image from above, was murdered by an ex-girlfriend, who then also killed herself.
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Reis standing next to his tombstone with unfilled year of death |
The event made a big impression on Eduardo Reis. He lost his faith and became a humanist.
In order to process his grief, but also in memory of his son and to express his new views as a humanist, he started to fill the space in front of and next to the villa with many sculptures, various singular architectures and a very large number of text boards, about which he once said: this is practically an open-air library.
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| entrance of the Villa |
The text in red and black above the entrance of the villa, a in above image, reads:
seed a conscious humanism
pacify everyone
If the human primate were more intelligent
the spirit of Christmas should be permanent
in Trofa and my country, my house and my world
WELCOME TO MY WORLD
comend. Eduardo Reis
Among the sculptures that adorn this art environment, there are relatively many that depict gorillas and chimpanzees, as can be seen in the image above. This also relates to Reis' new insights, as in a video he said: I do not consider myself a descendant, nor a son, of Adam and Eve. I called my Adam and Eve "Gorilladão" and "Chimpanseva".
The site also has a set of sculptures portraying Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, as seen above.
Like the other sculptures of female characters that appear in this art environment, Snow White has a somewhat classical appearance, mainly due to her clothing.
Reis' art environment is distinguished not only by the large amount of texts on panels, but also by some special expressions of singular architecture.
In this regard the image above shows a replica of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The huge anchor also in the picture is actually hanging much closer to the street, as the third photo from above shows.
The image below shows a tree house named Paradise Tarzan Home, from which a suspension bridge leads to another tree. On this bridge and on the roof of the tree house some monkeys stay.
The image also shows three columns supporting large teardrop-shaped creations woven from iron wire and behind these columns rises a small-scale replica of a pyramid.
Reis' art environment, which could only be partially described here, cannot be visited by the public, except on exceptional occasions, but the site can be easily seen from the street
Documentation
* article (August 2011) in local newspaper Noticias de Trofa
* article by Jo Farb Hernandez on the website of SPACES
* article (January 2020) in newspaper Tribuna de Macau
* website with a series of photos of the site by photographer Jorge Camilo
Videos
* Video (April 2013) by Juliana Moreira (YouTube, 1'59")
* Video (February 2022) by Serflac, fragment about Reislândia starts at 38'21"
Eduardo Reis
Reislândia
Rua 16 de Maio 1929
Parish of Bougado, municipality of Trofa, region Norte, Portugal
can't be visited, open only on very special occasions
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